Heresy

Saudade

Language is the way we bring existence to our lives.  That is why I think it is magical to discover words that exist in one language and not another, creating feelings that an entire community can or cannot experience.  

The story of a tiny village in central Africa comes to mind.  In the language spoken there, the word sadness did not exist.  This village, like many others in Africa, had been the victim of absolute poverty, hunger, war, displacement and, of course, AIDS.  More than half of the village was infected and several researchers noticed how mourning never ended in this population in particular.  The lives of the widows and children were still covered by an invisible veil of sorrow that would not go away.  After inquiring, they realized that the word sadness did not exist in their language and they created it, describing the meaning, the magnitude of the feelings associated with sadness and then, the mourning, the true grief of each of the inhabitants began.  They had discovered in language a door to let out their pain, by experiencing sadness, a feeling that was now possible, they could mourn and carry on with their lives without that invisible veil that no one seemed to understand.

Today I learned a new word in Portuguese from a friend.  Saudade.  It is the feeling of desire for something or someone you had but is no longer there, for a reason we know they will not come back.  Even deeper yet, Saudade refers to something we would have wanted in our lives and we think will never come.  It is a word that comes close to a feeling similar to longing, but it is even deeper and has a connotation of loss.

However, and here is the heresy for today, Saudade describes that feeling of emptiness without sadness or without making that someone or the situation wrong, without thinking that it is a bad thing that it or he/she is no longer there, or does not exist.  That is to say, experiencing the emptiness from the perfection of emptiness itself.  Saudade goes away or ceases to exist when we approach that certain something or someone or we fill the emptiness with their presence.  That is to say, how can I miss what I am bringing into my life?

This heresy is an invitation to discover the magical meaning of Saudade: experience based on emptiness infinite appreciation for what we are not, for what we do not have, without associating any judgment with the situation, without thinking that it is bad for a person to have died, or to be far away, that we no longer have that job, understanding that everything is perfect and feeling the emptiness based on love.  Therefore, Saudade is a clean expression of love that understands even the perfection of the absence of our loved one, and that in turn teaches us that we cannot miss what is in our heart, because we have already brought it into our lives.

I will continue to experience this new feeling of Saudade that my friend Joseph brought into my life through language.

 

The power of choice

This heresy is another result of my experience from reviewing the Landmark Forum last weekend.  The truth is that the number of distinctions during the course would give us a whole year full of heresies.  So here goes one of these heretic distinctions: deciding is opting for an alternative after carefully considering the reasons we have or do not have, choosing is selecting an alternative based on freedom, based on Nothing, connecting to the core of our being, with our own essence, that is, choosing does not depend on reason, we choose simply because we choose to.

The thing with decisions is like Ruben Blades puts it, behind each decision, there is “someone who wins, someone who loses”, basically because my reasons will always be incomplete.  They will never be enough.  My reasons are my reasons and seen from another standpoint, there is a million more reasons.  That is to say, life is full of reasons, but they mean nothing.  Reasons are simply the product of the way you look at things.  That is why decisions are susceptible to questioning, that is why the result of such questioning is inevitably a judgment based on the perspective of existing reasons.

The heresy lies in the choice, as an alternative to the decision.  Choosing from on Nothing, choosing simply because you choose to.  We can make choices when we are really in tune with our self.  When we have greased the cable that connects us to our heart.  When we live knowing that our essence recognizes the alternative to our happiness.  The magic of choosing is that you don’t need a reason, or you can even go against all existing reasons.  The power is infinite because that choice comes from the deepest corners of our being, because it is our choice.

Choices may not be understood.  That’s okay. They don’t have to be understood.  The most important thing is to experience the power of choosing, because we are at liberty to do so, because our choices are the reflection of our intimacy with our own heart.

And, as Ruben Blades say: when we decide... "someone loses, someone wins, Hail Mary!"

                    

Campaign for unreasonableness

It is a commonly accepted paradigm that reason is something good and irrationality is insane, yes, by definition.  This is why we think we have to have reasons for everything.  Reasons for each action, thought, word, action and omission; we judge ourselves and we judge others for each reason that is missing and we even have moments of anxiety when our heart offers alternatives that are not based on any reason at all.

And the unreasonable?  Immediate judgment is insanity and insanity requires treatment.  Insanity is a disease.  It even requires reclusion.  Things that are unreasonable must even find a reason strong enough to pacify their violence and become an appropriate, well grounded, duly documented explanation.  This is how we declare the victory of reason and feel good about ourselves.

My heresy is that irrationality makes sense.  Irrationality is the manifestation of the passion felt by the direction of dreams and even if it cannot find a reason or explanation, it dares to act, it dares to live.  Irrationality is a manifestation of love, a symptom that the heart is pumping, a statement of life.  

When we are in love, we feel more alive than ever, and the more irrational we are, there is nothing that can stop us, intimidate us, convince us not to carry on.  When we are in love, nothing is impossible.  There is simply no reason good enough to quiet our heart.  That is the greatest display of irrationality.  If you can be totally unreasonable in the name of love, why not declare your irrationality in your own life in the name of the love for yourself?

When are we going to stop postponing our dreams for any little reason that crosses our path?  When are we going to stop postponing our life in search for a reason that is good enough to live it fully?  When are we going to stop living, pretending to be alive?  When are we going to stop needing reasons?  Let’s be deeply unreasonable when it comes to happiness.  Let’s be completely unreasonable when it comes to life.  Aren't we alive? 

Do I have to give you another reason?